Cedar shakes, have long been a favored roofing material given their pleasing rustic look. However, over the years the supply of cedar has been greatly reduced, and that which is available tends to be expensive and is often of poor quality. Where alternative woods have been utilized the desirable appearance of cedar has been sacrificed. In this regard, split cedar shakes have a distinctive grooved surface and a unique golden brown color which ages to silver-grey. Thus, difficulty has been encountered in reproducing both the surface texture and the colorization of cedar where alternative woods are used. Certain known devices and processes for making shingles or shakes are disclosed in U.S. Letters Patent Nos. 4,291,601; 3,207,192; 3,717,450; 1,910,895; 1,780,097; 1,704,412; 1,683,751; and 1,593,800.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a log fabricating process which produces roofing shakes with grooved surfaces which give the shakes the appearance of being hand split or hand hewn.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a shake fabricating process for coloring shakes, for treating the shakes with preservatives to provide a prolonged life, and for returning the shakes to a natural wood color which is inherently distorted by preservative treatments.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a shake fabricating process which produces durable shakes efficiently and at a reasonable cost.